New business strategies from Microsoft

Two big news releases came out of Microsoft recently. First on August 23, 2013 it announced that its CEO, Steve Ballmer will be retiring from the company within a year. The following week it announced that it will be buying Nokia’s phone service.

Steve Ballmer joined the Redmond, Washington based company in 1980 becoming the 30th employee of the company and became the CEO in January 2000 taking over the company from the co-founder, Chairman and then CEO Bill Gates. Under Steve Ballmer’s watch Microsoft tripled its revenue and doubled its profits. But his tenure is also surrounds controversy. His time as CEO resulted in losing billions of dollars in acquisitions and the Surface tablet this is not doing well. The announcement jumped its stock price.

On September 2, 2013 Microsoft announced that it is buying Nokia’s devices and services unit including the Lumia phone lineup for $7.17 billion and agreeing to spend additional money for other activities. This will give the Microsoft much needed entrance into the ever increasing mobile phone business and add another 32,000 strong workforce. The deal will bring back former Microsoft employee Stephen Elop back to the company and he is much rumored to become the next CEO.